Where Do Vanished Objects Go?
by SyrupylikeBreakfastinMontag
Summary: Harry loses his temper and vanishes Draco.  Now he has to rescue Draco from the mysterious place where vanished objects go.  HP/DM DM/HP Harry/Draco Draco/Harry contains slash.


Where Do Vanished Objects Go?

*Author's Note: This whole story began with the question: where do vanished objects go? I decided to answer that question by having Harry vanish Draco and then get to play the hero and rescue him. This story takes place in their 8th year, when Harry and Draco have gone back to Hogwarts to make up for time and education lost during the war. It ignores the epilogue. I hope you guys enjoy it!*

It was the sneer that did it. Harry could've handled the taunts, the oh-so-typical off hand insults, he thought, if it wasn't for the sneer. It definitely wasn't that one of Draco's malicious comments had finally his home, Harry told himself fervently. It was that bloody sneer.

"What's it like, Potter, knowing you've already done the biggest thing you'll ever do? Chosen One's pretty useless now that there's nothing he's been chosen to do anymore," drawled Draco, a cocky smirk tugging at the corners of his pallid lips. Harry tensed, shoulders squaring and fists clenching at his sides.

"Sod off, Malfoy," he growled through gritted teeth.

"Nobody needs you anymore, Potter. Your purpose has been filled. No one to play the hero for now," Draco continued, his voice growing harsher and more resentful with each word. Harry briefly wondered if Draco was _that_ upset that he had needed Harry to save him during the war, but the thought didn't have time to fully form before Draco's next comment knocked it out of Harry's head.

"You're just someone a lot of people died for now," Draco spat, and before Harry knew what he was doing he had exploded out of his chair and was pointing his wand straight at Draco's sneering face.

"Evanesco!" he shouted. There was a bang, a flash of light, and before Draco could even look surprised, he had vanished. One moment there was a slender blonde boy, and the next, nothing.

"Bloody hell, mate," gasped Ron from the doorway where he had just walked in. "What did you just do?"

"I think," stuttered Harry, eyes wide in shock and horror. "I think I just vanished him."

"Is that even possible to do to humans?" Ron asked incredulously, staring at the patch of air that had contained Draco as if he expected the other boy to be hiding there somehow.

"I guess so…" muttered Harry, lowering his wand slowly.

"Where do you suppose he went?" asked Ron, walking forward to stand at Harry's side.

"No idea," replied Harry in a daze. "Where do vanished objects go?"

-XXXXXXX-

Draco landed on the ground with a thump, or at least, he thought it was the ground he was sprawled on, but it was difficult to tell. Everything looked the same: just an endless sea of white without any sort of horizon line to tell where one plane ended and another began. Draco slowly sat up, massaging his sore back as he tried to get his bearings, but there really seemed to be nothing here. No ceiling, no floor, no walls, just unending whiteness stretching out in every direction.

Draco frowned, trying to remember how he got here. Was he dreaming? Was this all some sort of horribly realistic nightmare? Draco reached out with carefully manicured fingernails and pinched the pale flesh of his arm. It hurt. Not a dream then. And then Draco remembered: Harry. _Harry_ had vanished him. _Harry_ had sent him here.

"Fuck," Draco exclaimed, but the whiteness just absorbed his words like a sponge. Draco shivered, then got to his feet and started walking.

-XXXXXXX-

The pointy, black toe of Mcgonagall's shoe rapped the floor in an ever increasing rhythm. The more Harry and Ron explained, the faster the shoe tapped and the thinner the line of Mcgonagall's mouth got.

"So you're telling me, Potter, that you _vanished_ poor Mr. Malfoy?" she hissed through lips pursed in anger.

"Yes, Professor," admitted Harry nervously, his finger tapping anxiously against his knee. Mcgonagall sighed, her shoulders slumping wearily. She had thought that after leading the school through a war her job would seem easy. She was wrong.

"This is serious, Potter," she scolded, massaging her aching temples with two bony fingers. "As I would hope you remember from my class, the difficulty of a vanishing spell increases with the complexity of the animal to be vanished. Honestly, I'm shocked you managed to vanish Mr. Malfoy with that in mind. Humans are quite complex and are thus well near impossible to vanish."

"But it has been done before right?" asked Harry anxiously, leaning forward in his seat. "Surely you must know what happened to him, where he is?" Mcgonagall nodded grimly.

"Yes, Potter, I do know where Mr. Malfoy is. Unfortunately, locating him is not the problem. It's getting him back that's the issue."

-XXXXXXX-

It felt like he had been walking for days, but Draco had no way of knowing how much time had actually passed. It felt like it had been a long time, but Draco wasn't tired, nor was he hungry or thirsty or in need of the toilet, so maybe it hadn't been long at all. He could have been walking for minutes or for years, either way it made no difference. Draco was still surrounded by the same sea of unending white. Perhaps Draco had walked miles, perhaps he had just been wandering in circles; there was no way to tell.

Draco had talked as he walked at first, swearing and cursing Harry to numerous and vividly detailed deaths, but Draco had soon stopped speaking. The way the whiteness just swallowed his words gave him the creeps, and besides, a little voice in the back of his head was warning him that if he kept talking to himself here, amidst this endless nothingness, that he might not be able to stop. Draco had no desire to be driven insane by this place.

And then, suddenly, where once there had been only nothing, now stood endless rows of solid, white shelves. The shelves didn't melt out of the whiteness, or materialize from thin air. One moment there was simply whiteness, and the next moment the shelves had always been there.

"Bloody hell," gasped Draco, coming to a halt. Then something rubbed up against Draco's legs and he looked down in surprise. Yellow eyes stared up at Draco from a smoke-colored face.

"Shoo," Draco commanded the cat with disdain, trying to squirm his legs away from the furry creature. The cat just continued to stare at him, a mildly bored expression on its feline features.

"Sod off, you mangy beast," demanded Draco again, flapping his arms at the cat in a shooing motion. The cat didn't so much as blink, choosing instead to rub up against Draco's pant leg, depositing several coarse, dark hairs on the expensive material.

"Make me," drawled the cat in a rich, gravely voice. Each word seemed to contain the echo of a purr around the edges. Draco nearly jumped out of his skin.

"Did you- did you just speak?" he stuttered, staring down at the cat in shock.

"Of course not," said the cat as it began to meticulously lick clean one of its ashen paws. "Cats can't talk. Everyone knows that." It looked up at Draco in mildly sadistic amusement. Draco frowned.

"I'm not going crazy am I?" he asked slowly, half afraid of what the answer could be.

"Who knows," drawled the cat. "I'm just a cat." Draco frowned down at the cat for a moment, trying to decide how to react to this unlikely creature. He eventually decided that ignoring it would be best and turned his attention to the shelves. Sometime during his conversation with the cat, the shelves had changed, going from empty expanses to filled with rubbish. Everything any bored school kid had ever thought to vanish lined the now over crowded shelves, and not all of it was just objects. There were frogs, birds, and mice scurrying around in there too, and Draco wondered how the stayed alive down here. What did they eat? Each other? Then again, he wasn't at all hungry, so maybe you didn't need to eat to stay alive in this strange place.

"So," yowled the cat, still lapping clean one pink-padded paw. "What's the plan?"

"What?" asked Draco, confused.

"The plan?" said the cat slowly, as though talking to someone very stupid. "You've been down here for a while now. Surely you have a plan to escape. We don't get many humans down here. They don't last long."

"What do you mean they don't last long? They find a way out?" asked Draco hopefully. The cat just gave him a pitying look, like a mother explaining to a kid that yes, the fire will still be hot no matter how many times you touch it.

"I guess in a manner of speaking it's a way out," drawled the cat. "But it is not a way you will want to take." Draco remembered the fear that he would not be able to stop talking to himself and shuddered.

"So?" pressed the cat. "Your plan?"

"I don't really have one," admitted Draco. "I don't have my wand here." The cat looked at him with withering scorn.

"We are in the place of all things lost, all things forgotten. You really think there are no wands down here?" Draco stepped up to the first row of shelves and started looking.

-XXXXXXX-

"You want me to _what_?" asked Harry indignantly, staring in horror at Mcgonagall's frustrated face.

"Did vanishing Mr. Malfoy also damage your hearing, Potter?" snapped Mcgonagall. "I said you'll have to vanish yourself to go and get him. It will take your wand to undo the spell, Potter, and your intent. Trust me, if I could go myself or send someone older to do this I would, but it has to be you. Besides, it shouldn't be horribly difficult. All you have to do is find Mr. Malfoy, and vanish him and yourself again. That should get you back here no problem."

"But I thought you said this was serious, Professor," said Harry, bemused. "If getting him back is all that simple, why should it be serious?" Mcgonagall frowned a worried frown.

"There are ways and ways this could go wrong," admitted Mcgonagall. "And if it does, the pair of you could be stuck in there. Forever. Unfortunately, however, we have no choice. It must be you, Potter. Otherwise Mr. Malfoy has no chance." Harry nodded gravely, sitting up straighter in his chair.

"Yes, Professor. I understand, and I'll do it. I'll get him back."

-XXXXXXX-

"And then that git just pointed his want at me and vanished me out of nowhere!" exclaimed Draco indignantly as he continued to sift through the shelf's contents. He had gone back to ranting out loud on the not entirely ridiculous basis that he wasn't just talking to himself anymore: he had the cat to listen to him.

"Completely out of nowhere," drawled the cat sarcastically, watching Draco from its compact curl on the floor. Its tail thumped the ground lazily as it spoke.

"Exactly!" ranted Draco, completely missing the cat's sarcasm. "That complete twat! Who does he think he is?"

"Who indeed," drawled the cat through a jaw cracking yawn, exposing sharp canines and a delicately arching tongue.

"Stupid 'Chosen One'," continued Draco, barely registering the cat's words so strong was his irritation. He flung a pile of books on the floor. Draco had been searching through this rubbish for what felt like quite some time, and heaps of junk lined the floor in his wake where he had dropped it.

"You must really want to mate with this 'Potter'," commented the cat absently.

"Wha-what?" spluttered Draco, staring down at the cat in shock.

"You can't stop talking about him. Is that not a sign of human infatuation?" inquired the cat. Draco flushed, his cheeks staining a pale pink.

"That may be true sometimes," protested Draco hurriedly, "but it's not true in this case. We hate each other. I'm sure he's out there right now laughing his ass off over my misery."

-XXXXXXX-

"Evanesco."

Harry landed amidst the sea of white with a painful thump, his wand clutched in a death grip in his fist. That wand was Harry's ticket back home. He wasn't letting go of it for anything. Harry gingerly got to his feet, looking curiously around at the unending expanse of white surrounding him. He had the unnerving feeling that he wasn't alone here, but he couldn't see anything, just white.

"Malfoy?" he shouted, but the air just seemed to absorb his cry. He tried again, louder this time.

"Malfoy!" Still nothing. Harry strode off through the nothingness, head swiveling back and forth as he scoured the place for any sign of Draco.

-XXXXXXX-

"Malfoy?" Draco's head shot up at the sound of his name.

"Hello!" he shouted back frantically. "I'm over here!"

"Malfoy!" the stranger called again. Draco instantly dropped the baseball he had been holding and took off, sprinting in the direction the voice was coming from.

"I'm over here!" he called again. The cat just watched him go through half lidded eyes before resting its chin on its folded paws and letting its eyes slip shut.

Draco sprinted down aisle after aisle of shelves, following the voice still calling his name. The voice was both oddly muffled as though coming from far away and overly intimate as though whispered in his ear, and the conflicting sensations put Draco on edge. But that wasn't important. The only thing that was important was locating the speaker. And then, as Draco careened around a corner, he came face to face with Harry.

"Potter!" exclaimed Draco in surprise and not a little relief. "I never thought I'd say this, but thank Merlin you're here." But Harry didn't seem to hear him. In fact, he couldn't even seem to see Draco. Even though he was facing vaguely in Draco's direction, his eyes weren't focusing on the blonde boy, instead seeming to stare right through him.

"Malfoy!" Harry shouted again, turning away from Draco and squinting off into the distance, confirming Draco's theory that Harry couldn't see him.

"Potter!" Draco said loudly, stepping in front of Harry and waving his hands about in front of the other boy's face. "Oy! Potter!"

"Kiss him," drawled a bored voice from behind Draco. Draco spun around to see the cat sitting there, observing him with cool, yellow eyes.

"Kiss him?" repeated Draco in surprise.

"Yes," confirmed the cat. "If you kiss him he'll be able to see you."

"Why should I have to kiss him?" protested Draco, eyeing Harry dubiously.

"Well, really just a touch would do," admitted the cat, "but you're going to have to start kissing him sometime." Draco rolled his eyes.

"Manipulative little beast…" he grumbled under his breath.

"What do you expect," purred the cat. "I am a cat after all." Draco almost chuckled, but quickly caught himself. He reached out tentatively, as if he was afraid he might break Harry by pressing to hard, and gingerly touched his fingertips to Harry's cheek. Instantly Harry's emerald eyes focused on Draco's wan face.

"Malfoy!" he yelped, leaping back in surprise at the other boy's sudden materialization. "How-? Where-?" Draco couldn't contain a smirk, just a small one though. He didn't want to antagonize his only way out of here too much.

"I was here the whole time, Potter," Draco said imperiously, chin held haughtily high. "You just couldn't see me." Harry just watched Draco thoughtfully for a moment and then turned away, dropping the point in favor of examining the rows of shelves that were now visible to him.

"What is this place?" Harry asked in awe. Draco raised a pale eyebrow.

"Hell if I know, Potter. You're the one who sent me here." Harry shifted his weight guiltily.

"Yeah, actually, about that, I um," stuttered Harry, avoiding meeting Draco's gaze. "I wanted to say I'm sorry. For getting you into this mess, I mean. I lost my temper, and I just wasn't thinking." Draco just blinked in surprise, unable to form a response to such an unexpected statement.

"I, um," Draco stammered before he got a hold of himself. "You can make it up to me by getting me the fuck out of here. And maybe a punch. I think punching you would be well deserved." Harry glared.

"Dream on, Malfoy. There's no way I'm letting you punch me."

"Some Griffindor honor you have there, Potter…" grumbled Draco, only mildly disappointed. He hadn't had high expectations for that one. Harry rolled his eyes.

"Don't make me regret coming to save you," muttered Harry, but it was an empty threat and they both knew it.

"Meow!" A demanding cry emanated from the area around Draco's feet as something rubbed demandingly against the inside of Draco's calf.

"Aww come here, puss," crooned Harry with a warm smile, kneeling down and extending an inviting hand out towards the charcoal feline. The cat stuck out its nose, skeptically sniffing the air in front of Harry's hand for a moment before raising its chin haughtily in a snub and turning back to Draco.

"Meow!" it yowled again demandingly. Draco reached down, stroking the cat between its fluffy ears. The cat began to purr loudly and contentedly, finalizing its snub of Harry. Harry didn't look offended, though. He just smiled a tiny, amused smile and stood up once more.

"Looks like it's taken a liking to you," he commented casually. Draco couldn't help an arrogant smirk.

"It must have good taste," he replied smugly. Harry snorted.

"Maybe it just likes rich pricks," he grumbled back. Draco gave his platinum blond hair a haughty flip.

"You say that like it's a bad thing," he joked. Harry almost laughed, but he realized he would be laughing at a joke made by Draco before the chuckle could escape and stopped it in its tracks. Awkward silence descended.

"Well, um," coughed Harry uncomfortably. "Let's start working on getting out of here, shall we?" Draco nodded.

"First good idea you've had all day." Harry ignored the jive.

"So, Mcgonagall told me that to get us out of here, I have to vanish you while you're touching me so that you take me with you when you go. Apparently I can't vanish myself out of here otherwise."

"Alright," nodded Draco, extending his hand out towards Harry. "Let's get this show on the road then." Harry nodded, looking more nervous than Draco would have liked as he reached out and grasped Draco's proffered hand, gingerly intertwining his tan fingers with Draco's pale ones.

"Pick me up!" commanded the cat, sinking its claws into Draco's ankle to ensure that the blonde paid attention to its order. Harry nearly jumped out of his skin, dropping Draco's hand in shock and staring disbelievingly at the little grey cat.

"Did you just talk?" Harry breathed incredulously, green eyes wide beneath round spectacles. The cat stared back with disapproving yellow eyes.

"No," it drawled sarcastically. "I'm sure I did no such thing. Now pick me up," it ordered Draco again. "I'm coming with you."

"Fine," conceded Draco, reaching down and scooping up the fuzzy feline. "But watch the claws or I will drop you and leave you here." The cat just stared, clearly saying with its eyes that it would scratch when it bloody well pleased. Harry chuckled lightly, looking back and forth between Draco and the cat in amusement. He could see why the cat liked Draco now. The two of them were very similar.

"Well, Potter," demanded Draco, extending his hand out towards Harry once more. "Are you going to get us out of here or not?" Harry took Draco's hand once more, blushing despite himself as their fingers laced together.

"Ok, hold on tight," he said, raising his wand. Draco squeezed Harry's hand lightly, getting a more solid grip, and the cat slowly and deliberately sank its claws into Draco's expensive button down, latching onto the indignant blonde. Draco didn't have time to bemoan the state of his pricey shirt, however, before Harry took a deep breath and in his nervousness practically shouted the incantation.

"Evanesco!" Harry yelled. An instant later they were gone, and the isle of shelves they had been standing in was empty once more.

-XXXXXXX-

"We're back," gasped harry disbelievingly, staring around in surprised delight at the stone walls of the castle's hallway. "It worked! We're actually back!" Draco raised an eyebrow.

"It worries me that you sound so surprised," Draco commented, but truth be told, Draco was surprised too. It seemed too easy, but here they were, back in the castle and the real world as if nothing had ever happened. He was free.

"Are you going to kiss him now?" drawled a bored voice from Draco's chest. Both Draco and Harry looked down at the cat in wide-eyed surprise.

"Kiss-why on earth would I kiss this twat?" blurted Draco incredulously. Then he realized he was still holding Harry's hand and dropped it hastily.

"I don't know," purred the cat, sounding completely disinterested in the conversation, "to celebrate the victory of your escape perhaps? Like a sports' chest bump, but on the lips." Draco looked horrified. Harry looked torn between horror and wanting to burst out laughing.

"That's the only time I've ever heard kissing another guy sound macho," Harry commented, amused. The cat just looked at him.

"Put me down," the cat commanded Draco. Draco grimaced, tugging the cat's claws carefully free of his now pockmarked shirt before dropping the feline unceremoniously to the floor. The cat paused for a moment to give Draco an appraising look before it turned its back on him and, tail sticking up haughtily into the air, sauntered away down the corridor.

"Where are you going?" called Draco, confused and a little hurt, though he would never admit it.

"Away," retorted the cat matter-of-factly. "I'm free now, and you have served your purpose." And, without any further comment or goodbye, the cat rounded a corner and vanished from sight.

"Fickle little fuck," breathed Draco, taken aback. Harry just shrugged.

"It's a cat. What did you expect? You want unwavering loyalty, get yourself a dog." Draco just continued to stare at the point where the cat had disappeared from sight, his look shifting slowly from disbelieving to calculating.

"I know what I want in return for you vanishing me," Draco exclaimed suddenly, rounding on Harry. Harry looked surprised for a moment, and then a worried frown crept over his face.

"What?" he asked warily.

"Close your eyes," commanded Draco. Harry's frown deepened, and he took a step back, defensively widening the space between them.

"No way in hell," he said firmly.

"You owe me, Potter," growled Draco. "You _vanished_ me! What if something had gone wrong? What if I had gotten stuck there forever? Who knows what could have happened to me because you couldn't keep your temper in check!" Harry stared at the ground guiltily, avoiding Draco's eyes.

"I didn't mean-" he mumbled quietly. Draco cut him off.

"It doesn't matter what you meant. You did it. You put me in incredible danger. Now close your damn eyes. You owe me." And, despite all of his instincts shouting at him not to, Harry let his eyes slip shut, silently cursing his bloody Griffindor sense of chivalry. For a moment nothing happened and Harry cringed, waiting for the blow that was surely about to come, and then a hand was closing on Harry's shoulder and soft lips were pressing gently against his. It was just a brief, perfectly chaste kiss, but it still practically caused Harry's heart to stop from shock. Then Draco pulled back and Harry's emerald eyes flickered open, examining Draco's features curiously. The pair stood there for a moment just watching each other, feeling out the situation. Draco's hand was still on Harry's shoulder. Then Harry leaned in and kissed Draco back, lips moving searchingly over Draco's, a questing tongue flickering over the seam of Draco's mouth. By the time they separated they were both flushed and out of breath.

"I'm sorry I vanished you," gasped Harry earnestly. Draco just smirked.

"Good," he said, stepping back from Harry and beginning to stride nonchalantly away down the corridor. "You should be." Harry just rolled his eyes and trotted to catch up to the self-satisfied blonde.

At the other end of the hallway, smug yellow eyes watched the scene in amusement. The cat smiled a big, self-satisfied smile that looked grotesque and unnatural on the cat's feline features. Cats were not meant to smile. Then the cat turned and strutted haughtily away down the corridor. The warm glow of the torch light caressed the cat's side, projecting a flickering shadow onto the wall beside it. The shadow jumped and jerked for a moment, and then stretched, the little cat body becoming tall and lanky.

Severus Snape shook his head disapprovingly, his smoke-colored cloak billowing out behind him as he walked. Honestly. His students were so gullible. First, they actually believed that he would let some ruddy snake get the best of him, and now they were perfectly happy to believe that cats could talk without being an animagus. Really. The imbeciles. There was absolutely no hope for them.

*Author's Note: Well there you have it! I couldn't resist bringing Severus back to life to make him the cat. It just seemed too perfect to me. I hope you guys enjoyed the story! Please review with any feedback and thanks for reading!*


End file.
